15 February 2022  :: Los-Angeles, California

Day Ten

I haven't been in a writing mood for the past nine days…I don't feel bad at all for waiting. I had to know that they weren't going to read this.

They almost did it today. They almost got that reaction they were hoping for. Looking up towards that little window to see her staring back was not something I really expected. I knew it was a possibility. I'm sure Zane had called her and told her she should come but that she actually did was quite a shock. She's so pretty. Even without sleep and looking like hell, she's still so fucking pretty. It makes me want to grab her by her scrawny neck and just beat the hell out of her, break her nose...make her eyes swell shut. That way I won't have to see them, probing, staring straight through me to see what's inside. I hate her. I hate her most of all.

How can someone look like complete shit and be beautiful at the same time? The circles beneath her eyes are worse than mine. Poor X5-452 doesn't get much sleep these days, eh?.. I hate you. I fucking hate you

I refuse to call her by her name. She stopped being "Max" to me so long ago I don't even remember. No…that's a lie. I remember exactly. It'd been almost thirteen years ago. Maybe she was pissed off at me too, but it doesn't really matter anymore, not really. I was the one living in seclusion. I was alone. No one ever came to see me except Zack. I never did like Zack. He never cared about me like he did you. He never cared about me the way Ben and you cared about me… God I hate you. I hate you both.

I hope it hurt like hell when I turned my back on you. Because it hurt like hell when you turned yours on me.

** ** **

Jondy wouldn't cry. She wouldn't cry. She wouldn't do it. She hadn't cried in the ten days of hell since she'd been here, and she wasn't going to start now. Not with them watching, never with her watching. She could feel their eyes on her, watching her, judging her. She could feel them on her skin and she wanted to hide. She ran her hands over her arms as if to brush away their gaze. It didn't work. They were still there, they were still watching.

"Stop looking at me". She whispered as she slid from the bed to the floor. Crawling around the head rail until they could only see her hair. She sat cross-legged on the floor, the cold tiles making her skin prickle through the thin pants. "Stop looking at me."

Unconsciously one hand moved to her mouth, her teeth biting at the skin surrounding her finger-tips. Her nails were long gone, bitten to the quick during frequent periods of anxiousness. Her other hand tugged at a thread that dangled from the hem of her shirt. She pulled at the string until it lengthened and the stitches began to slowly unravel. She was unraveling, falling apart at the seams…

Stop looking at me. All of you go back where you came from. You didn't want me then, you sure in the hell don't want me now. Her fingers moved from her mouth to her nose, pinching it, brushing it where it itched. Stop looking at me.

"She's so small."

"What?" Zane glanced over at Max, his eyes quickly returning to the frail form on the bed.

"She doesn't even look like the same person. She's so thin."

"I know. It's unhealthy. She only eats enough to get by." He stared at the girl on the bed. She was wearing scrub type pants and a white thin tank top. Her spine and ribs clearly visible through the thin cloth and her hand, lying limply on the mattress beside her was frail and skeletal.

"If she wants to get better then why doesn't she eat? Why doesn't she talk?"

"She doesn't want to get better. She wants to get out. She didn't come here because she wanted to, we forced her to come."

"And I am supposed to fix her." Max's whispered words fogged the glass in the small door pane as she leaned forward. The weight of the task pressed down and for a moment she couldn't move…couldn't breath. She couldn't do this…she had enough problems of her own. But she knew she had to, they all knew they couldn't let her down, not again.

Her mouth moved slowly as she muttered inside the room. Both wanted to hear the words. Max wanted to know what was happening on the other side of the door. Why wouldn't she look at them? Why wouldn't she speak aloud? Could she speak and was choosing not to? Had the drugs damaged her so completely that she just wasn't able to form the words? Was it reversible? The answers to these questions were obvious as she watched her, as she looked at the notebook that lay open on her lap. He'd seen her writing in it before she had the words…why wouldn't she say them?

Max continued to watch as she began to fidget, running her hands over her skin as if to brush something away. Her mouth continued to move silently as she slid to the floor and crawled out of site. Her head hunched down until they could only see a patch of brown curls between the metal bars of her headboard. She was hiding from something. But what?